Murder in Hell's Kitchen (Mass Market Paperback)

It seems to Jane that the initial session is all hype and cheer-leading. She wonders if other groups got more promising cases. Her team's case is set in a rent-controlled building. Four and a half years later all of the former tenants have moved. Such attrition is unusual.

It is a truism that a detective never loses interest in his old cases. Jane talked to Bracken, the investigating officer, about their case, termed the Quill case. It turns out that suspicious circumstances followed other in habitants of Quill's building.

Jane had grown to love her job in the police force. Retiring from it could be a problem for her. She is to move to a new expensive apartment and is slated to start a new job as an insurance investigator.

She likes the havoc below 14th Street. Most of the people in Quill's building had been sad older people, but not Jerry Hutchins. One of the original investigators thought that he did not fit. She flew to Omaha to pursue the investigation. She was in search of Hutchins. The officer assisting Jane in Omaha is injured. A badly beaten Hutchins is located, eventually. Obviously someone in New York City knew that the trail of the case had shifted to Nebraska.

A child Jane gave up for adoption surfaces. The real victim in the cold case used an alias. The plot is exciting and satisfying.

Her new partners are Gordon Defino and Sean MacHovec. It is soon evident that MacHovec prefers to stay in and work the phones. Defino and Jane do the legwork. They were to re-investigate the death of Arlen Quill. Quill had been found stabbed to death in the entry of his apartment building.

When they begin investigating, they find that everyone has moved from the apartment building. Considering that it is a rent-controlled building, this alone is suspicious. Then they find out that there were other deaths that in and of themselves were not suspicious but when you put them all together, they were.

On top of all this, Jane is going through some changes in her life. Recently she split up with Hack. He's married and his daughter was getting suspicious. And she's moving into a new apartment. Then the letter arrives and complicates her life even more.

She ends up going to Omaha to try to find one of the former tenants who might have much needed information. From that trip, she is concerned that she was followed. The case takes on a different tempo. She ends up putting herself in danger in her attempts to solve it.

I really like Jane. She is a complex character but yet she is human. New York is always a great setting for a mystery with a detective for the protagonist.

The plot takes many twists and turns before everything is discovered. It is very well written.

I have always enjoyed Lee Harris' other series starring ex-nun Christine Bennett. The two series are very different and I think that is a good thing.

I highly recommend this new series and cannot wait for the next book to be published.

Jane is a very likeable character, as is the entire supporting cast. I was a bit put off by the violence towards the end of the book, but I also realized it was necessary to the storyline. The whole thing wrapped up nicely, and it was a book I read at night until I fell asleep with it in my hand.

I look forward to Jane's next adventure.